On Wednesday, the Tallinn City Government adopted the action plan for the transition to Estonian-language teaching in the city’s kindergartens and schools.
The first, 2023/24. and 2024/25. the action plan for the period covering the academic year focuses on five priority directions, which are supporting the managers and teachers of educational institutions to achieve the required level of Estonian language, providing training to teachers in teaching methodologies for multilingual students, creating legal clarity at the state and city level, ensuring educational materials and language learning support for students, and recruiting support for new teachers.
The mayor Mihail Kõvarti According to “Tallinn’s action plan to support the transition to Estonian-language education does not duplicate the state’s plans, but includes measures to support teachers and students both in Estonian-language schools and in those schools where the transition to Estonian-language education takes place,” said Kõlvart.
The current number of teachers will be transferred to Estonian language learning. Therefore, Tallinn’s main goal in the first year is to support as many teachers as possible who could reach the C1 level of the Estonian language. “We’ve already started this before, but now we’re putting additional resources into it. To this end, the city organizes courses for teachers to reach the C1 level of the Estonian language,” said Kõlvart. “The Tallinn Board of Education provides central support for the recruitment of new teachers with the necessary qualifications for kindergartens and schools, and for this purpose the project “Specialist as a teacher” is launched”.
A language migration project will start in October, where teachers of Russian-speaking educational institutions will have the opportunity to support and develop their professional language skills in an Estonian-speaking school or kindergarten, and teachers of an Estonian-speaking pre-school institution can, in turn, support and develop the Estonian language skills of children in a group of preschoolers in a Russian-speaking kindergarten. Teachers’ individual language learning is also supported with a language app.
In order to improve the qualifications of teachers, subject didactic refresher courses are offered to teachers in cooperation with universities and the Tallinn Teachers’ House. Also, in cooperation with the University of Tartu, integrated subject and language learning methodologies and courses on learning and teaching in a multicultural learning environment are offered to teachers, especially for teachers of Estonian-speaking schools. To ensure the availability of didactic-methodical learning materials and environments, the Opiq learning environment is introduced in Russian-language schools.
In order to support the Estonian language of 1st and 4th grade students and to achieve better learning results, the plan is to develop and implement the concept of a full-day school that supports the curriculum, especially with 4th grade students in mind. Before the transition to Estonian-language education, children studied Estonian only twice a week according to the national curriculum, which now makes it difficult for them to acquire knowledge in Estonian in subject classes.
Creating legal clarity at the state and city level includes updating the system for assigning school places to children entering the 1st grade, taking into account the transition to Estonian-language education.
The action plan was developed by the city government’s temporary committee for the transition to Estonian-language education formed on May 31.
In accordance with the Act on Amendments to the Basic School and Gymnasium Act and other laws adopted by the Riigikogu on December 12, 2022, the transition of pre-school institutions, basic schools and gymnasiums to Estonian-language education will begin on September 1, 2024. The transition to Estonian-language learning is gradual: on September 1 of the same year, kindergartens as a whole and the 1st and 4th grades of general education schools will switch to Estonian-language learning. From September 1, 2024, the Estonian language skills of teachers teaching in Estonian in the 1st and 4th grades of schools and preschools must meet the C1 level.
